Latest / HEY, AMBITIOUS / 36. Your Brain Is Predicting. You’re Calling It the Truth

Transcript

36. Your Brain Is Predicting. You’re Calling It the Truth · HEY, AMBITIOUS

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hey Ambitious! I've been thinking what's the difference between brain, mind, and identity?
0:08
SPEAKER_00: All of this are kind of like interchangeable, right?
0:10
SPEAKER_00: So today I have a podcast for you if you are thinking the same way about you know what's the difference.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: So today I introduce you to three characters who are traveling around with you pretty much everywhere you go.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Your brain, your mind, and your identity.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: And yes, we use those interchangeably.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Like we say, I need to change my mind, my brain won't shut off, that's just who I am.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: But they're not exactly the same thing.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: And when you understand that, you begin to realize that just because your brain produces a thought, just because your mind gives something meaning, and just because you've believed something about yourself for a very long time, does not necessarily make it true.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: That's where a possibility gets in.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: So today we're going to meet these three characters.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: And because this is her ambitious, obviously we're going to put them into the life of an ambitious woman.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Because our ambitious woman's brain is very busy.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: She has plans, she has spreadsheets, she has goals, she has 17 tabs open, and I'm not only talking about her computer, she lets meet everybody.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: So, character number one, the brain.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: The brain is the physical equipment.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: It's an organ.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: You can touch it, you can scan it, you can measure activity happening inside it.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: Billions of neurons are communicating through enormous networks.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: And one of the remarkable things about the brain is that it learns.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: It learns from experience, it learns from repetition, it learns what has happened before and uses that information to help anticipate what might happen next.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: In neuroscience, there is a concept called Hebian plasticity or Heb's law.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard the popular phrase.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: What does that actually mean?
2:21
SPEAKER_00: Imagine you're walking through a field of tall grass.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: The first time you walk through it, there is no path.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: You're pushing the grass out of the way.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: It's awkward.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: You don't quite know where you're going.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: But tomorrow you walk exactly the same route, and the next day you do it again and again and again.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: Eventually there is a path.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: It becomes easier to walk because you've traveled it so many times.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Your brain does something conceptually similar.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: When certain neurons repeatedly activate together, the connections between them can strengthen.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: That's part of neuroplasticity.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: Your nervous system's ability to change with experience.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: So imagine that for 20 years you've repeatedly experienced big opportunity means uncertainty, and uncertainty feels like what if I fail?
3:19
SPEAKER_00: Or imagine you're resting and you're feeling guilty.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: You are successful and immediately you're asking, What's next?
3:28
SPEAKER_00: You made a mistake, and ooh, I should have known better.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: And then you see someone else's succeeds more than you did, immediately you tell yourself, I'm behind.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Every repetition is another walk down that familiar path.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, you don't wake up in the morning and consciously decide, hmm, what shall we think today?
3:55
SPEAKER_00: You just go, yeah, let's feel behind.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: The path is already there.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: It's familiar.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Your brain has become very efficient at traveling it, and this is important.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Familiar does not necessarily mean true.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: Familiar means familiar.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: That distinction alone can change so much.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Now, character number two, the mind.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: If the brain is the physical machinery, like to think of the mind as the experience and meaning making happening through that machinery.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: Thinking, remembering, imagining, interpreting, paying attention, creating meaning.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: So your brain detects information.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: And your mind starts telling you what that information means.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: And here's where it gets fun.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Imagine our ambitious woman closes her laptop at six o'clock.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: Today she answered 37 emails, finished the proposal, had four meetings, solved three problems nobody else even knew existed, picked something up for her child, remembered her friend's birthday, made dinner, essentially governed a small country.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: And then she sits on the couch, and what does she think?
5:27
SPEAKER_00: I didn't get enough done today.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: That was me.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: What else were we planning?
5:39
SPEAKER_00: World peace before bedtime?
5:42
SPEAKER_00: But watch the three characters.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Her brain has spent years becoming very good at noticing unfinished tasks that are still free emails.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: The presentation isn't completely finished.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: She did not work out.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: She did not call that person.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Her mind takes that information and creates meaning.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: I should have gotten more done.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Ugh.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Character number three walks into the room.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: Identity.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: Identity says, this tells us something about who you are.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: Now we've moved from I didn't finish three things to I didn't do enough.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: To I am not enough.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: Do you see how quickly we traveled?
6:39
SPEAKER_00: An unfinished email somehow became a referendum on our worth as a human being.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Ambitious women are talented like that.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: We can turn an unanswered email into an existential crisis in approximately seven seconds.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: But identity really matters.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: Because identity is essentially this collection of beliefs, memories, associations, and ideas we hold about who we are.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm responsible.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm successful.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm the one people can count on.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: I have to work hard.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm not good with money.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm terrible at selling.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm behind.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm not quite ready.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm the person who holds everything together.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: And once something becomes part of who I am, we naturally tend to interpret experiences through that lens, through the identity.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: There is actually a whole area of neuroscience studying self-referential processing.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: What happens when we are processing information related to ourselves?
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Researchers have repeatedly found networks involving cortical midline regions of the brain participating when we're thinking about ourselves.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: So me is the very powerful category for the brain.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: And that's why identity matters, because there is a big difference between I made a mistake and I am someone who always screws things up.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: One describes an event, the other creates an identity.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: Now, possibility walks into the room.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Possibility is my favorite trouble maker because possibility does not walk in and say everything is amazing.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: Possibility is not positive thinking.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: Possibility does not say your business will definitely succeed.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: You will definitely make a million dollars, everything will work out exactly as you planned.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: Because interestingly, that's still trying to create certainty.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: Possibility says something much simpler.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Wait, do we actually know that?
9:20
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly there is a tiny opening.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: What else could be true?
9:25
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: Possibility does not need to prove the old story wrong.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: It simply stops treating the old story as the only available story.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: Ambitious woman gets an idea.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a business, a program, a book, a product, a podcast.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: For approximately seven beautiful minutes, she's thrilled.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, this would be so much fun.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: I could create this.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: And then her brain clocks in for work.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, somebody else is already doing it.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: You don't have enough followers, you don't know enough about marketing.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: You tried something before and it didn't work.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: Now our ambitious woman does what any reasonable human being would do.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: She opens Instagram.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: Bad decision.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: Within 12 minutes she is found a 31-year-old woman who apparently wakes up at 4 30, has four children, runs seven companies, has perfect abdominal muscles, and has six hundred forty-two thousand followers.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: And now a woman thinks.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: See, I'm too late.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Let's slow this down.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: The brain searched its previous experience for information.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: The mind interpreted the information, other people are further ahead.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Identity joined in, maybe I'm not capable of doing this.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: And now possibility walks through the door.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: What if you don't need to know whether it will work in order to create it?
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Whoa.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: Notice what we didn't say.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: We didn't say it will definitely work.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: We said, you don't know yet.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: That's uncertainty.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: But it's also possibility.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly another question becomes available.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: What would I create if I didn't need proof that it would succeed first?
11:45
SPEAKER_00: Now she's creating again.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: That's the shift from prediction to creation.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: She works.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: Now let's put her in a networking room.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: She works through the door.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: Immediately the brain starts collecting information.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: She looks successful.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: They all know each other.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: That woman has a huge company.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: She is younger than me.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: She looks incredibly confident.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: The mind interprets everybody here is more successful than I am.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: And identity says, I don't belong here.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: And look at what happens to behavior.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Maybe she gets quieter, maybe she doesn't walk over to the woman she wanted to meet.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Maybe she stays close to the one person she already knows.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: Then she goes home without making any meaningful connections.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: And her brain says, See, I told you we don't belong in those rooms.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful! Which has created evidence for the original belief.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: That's how these loops can reinforce themselves.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: But what happens if she catches it?
12:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh, my brain is predicting, my mind is creating meaning, and my identity is trying to make this about who I am.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: And then she asks, what else could be true?
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Maybe what if I don't need to prove that I belong here?
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Or what if I'm simply here to find one interesting person?
13:26
SPEAKER_00: That's manageable.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: She looks around, there is another woman standing alone, she walks over, they start talking, they laugh, they discover something in common, that woman introduces her to someone else, and suddenly new data, new variable.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: Now her brain has an experience that was not available before.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: And this matters.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: Because changing your identity is not simply sitting in front of the mirror repeating, I'm confident, I'm confident, I'm confident, while another part of you is going, no and on.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: Identity change becomes powerful when we start creating experiences that give the brain new information.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: This is why I talk so much about experiments.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: Don't just think possibility, practice possibility.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, have you signed up for my possibility experiments?
14:28
SPEAKER_00: You receive five experiments over 10 days directly into your inbox, and it's up to you to practice them, which also allows you to present new data and new variables into your life, and then see the other world, which is also existing for you at the same time.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: So the link is going to be in the show notes.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: Now let's return to a woman on the couch.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: She had the incredibly productive day, but the familiar pathway says, not enough.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: And maybe this has happened thousands of times.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: It definitely has happened, was happening thousands of times for me for sure.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: So achievement, immediately look for the next achievement, finish something, you immediately look and notice what's not finished, receive a compliment, and then you immediately explain why it was not that impressive.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: You just reach the goal and you're asking what's next, moving the goalpost.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: So we have another familiar neural and psychological pattern.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: And remember, neurons that repeatedly activate together can strengthen their connections.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: So repetition matters.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: But here's the hopeful part.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Neuroplasticity does not only apply to the patterns you don't want.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: The nervous system continues to change through experience.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: So what if tonight, instead of automatically following, I didn't do enough, she interrupts it.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: Not with I did everything perfectly.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Her brain is not stupid, but perhaps wait, what did I actually do today?
16:18
SPEAKER_00: She starts looking.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: I finished the proposal, I had that difficult conversation, I followed through, I rested instead of answering one more email, I had dinner with my family, I showed up for something that mattered to me.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: Now she's deliberately noticing different evidence.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: And then she maybe asks, what if success today was not measured by how much I squeezed out of myself?
16:52
SPEAKER_00: What if enough is not something I earn at the end of my to-do list?
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Now we are walking through a slightly different part of the field.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: At first it may feel unnatural.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Of course it does.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: There's no path there yet.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: But you walk it again and again and again.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: Not because we are trying to brainwash ourselves with positive thoughts, we're expanding the range of information, interpretations, and behaviors available to us.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: We are expanding our consciousness.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: And the more we are aware, the more we can choose.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: And this is why possibility matters.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: This is what I want ambitious women to understand.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: Your brain is brilliant.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: But your brain is working with history.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: It's using previous experience to help navigate what happens next.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that's incredibly useful.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: But your future does not have to be an exact repetition of your past.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: So when your brain predicts this probably won't work, your mind might turn that into it's too risky.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: An identity might turn that into I'm not someone who can do this.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: Possibility interrupts the sequence.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: But what else could be true?
18:23
SPEAKER_00: That's such a small question.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: And yet it creates room.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm not behind.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm building something differently.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I don't need another certification before I begin.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this failure is not evidence about who I am.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: Maybe rest is not evidence that I'm losing momentum.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe somebody else's success is not evidence that there is less available for me.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I can be ambitious without constantly proving my worth.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Maybe expansion does not require more from me.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it requires access to more of me.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: That's possibility.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: And that is something that we'll be doing in our expanded, which is an eight-week creative residency for ambitious women, where we're rewiring our brain, our patterns, and creating new evidence for expansion.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: Where you learn that expansion does not require more of you, but it requires more from you, of you, of you.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: Because there is more of you than just perfectionism, control, and behind, and all of that.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: There is more of you, such as curiosity, exploration, possibility, creativity.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Can we bring that to the picture?
19:48
SPEAKER_00: That changes everything.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: So I invite you to join us.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be the only live cohort that I'm doing this year in 2026.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: If you're listening in 2026, and the link is gonna be in the show notes.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna start the second week in October.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: Now, your brain does not need to be the enemy, and this is important.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: We're not trying to fight the brain, we're not saying, bad brain, stop thinking negative thoughts.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Your brain is not sabotaging you because it has a personal vignette vendetta against your dreams.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: It's using what it knows, it's taking familiar routes.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Instead of fighting it, we can become curious.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: We can just remind ourselves, well, that's the familiar prediction, that's the familiar meaning, that's the familiar identity.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: And then what else is possible?
20:47
SPEAKER_00: So when we are able to hold these two possibilities in coexistence, we are expanding our range to see more, not just through this small keyhole, but expanded keyhole through expanded consciousness.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: And this is where the possibility becomes a part of the experience.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Right?
21:12
SPEAKER_00: And when we ask what else is possible, that's when you become the creator rather than simply the recipient of your previous conditioning.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: You introduce something new, a new thought, a new question, a new behavior, a new experience, a new piece of evidence, and perhaps eventually a new familiar pathway.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: So, your possibility experiment.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want you to play with today.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: Catch one prediction, that's all.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I don't have enough time, or I'm behind, or I'm not ready, or I'm not good at this, or this probably won't work, or it's too late, or I should be further along.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Don't fight it.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Don't fix it.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is wrong.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: It's just information.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: And now it's coming into your awareness.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Use your awareness just to say, interesting.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: That's a prediction.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: Then ask, what meaning am I giving this?
22:20
SPEAKER_00: And then what am I making this mean about me?
22:25
SPEAKER_00: That is your brain, there is your mind, there is your identity.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Now invite a fourth little troublemaker into the conversation.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Possibility.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: What else could be true?
22:40
SPEAKER_00: You don't even have to believe the answer yet.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Just let another possibility exist.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: Because your brain already knows the road you've traveled a thousand times.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: We're simply giving it somewhere new to go.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's what expansion really is.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: Not becoming a completely different woman, not fixing yourself, not working harder to finally become enough.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: Maybe expansion is increasing the number of possibilities available to the woman you already are.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Your brain predicts, your mind interprets, your identity says, This is who I am.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: And possibility whispers, maybe, but what else could be true?
23:31
SPEAKER_00: And that, ambitious woman, is where creation begins.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: And that's where I want to invite you to again, to the expansion studio, where we are coming together in October, and we're going to be rewiring our patterns and adding more curiosity, possibility, exploration, creativity, and that's what expands our range and capacity for our expansion.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Because maybe expansion is increasing the number of possibilities available to the woman you already are.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: Don't have to change yourself, fix yourself, but you can expand the range and add playfulness to perfectionism, add creativity to control, add exploration to um I'm behind and learn to change the meaning.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: And with that, you become a new level of consciousness.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: You become this new woman who does not need expansion to prove herself or yeah, prove herself.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: She expands because it feels fun.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Because she expands because she feels alive.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: She expands because she expresses herself through expansion.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: And that's the fun of it.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: Let's expand what's possible and have fun along the way.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: So we start the second week in October.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: The link is in the show notes, and I see you in our expansion studio the second week of October.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: So it includes six 45-minute Zoom sessions weekly.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, we have six, but it's an eight-week residency.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: So there are pre-recorded audios, but essentially we're going to be kind of learning and playing together with all of that.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, and imagine that you'll be entering the end of the year and the beginning of the year with this beautiful energy of possibility that you know how to access, how to use it, and how to create evidence and expand through possibility.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: So imagine that your past does not have to take a vote and tell you what's possible for you, but the possibility does.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: And the possibility is revealed through you.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: I look forward to uh expand with you.